Page images
PDF
EPUB

ture, science, and the arts display all their splendour. Wherever mankind sees these great types, these glorified images of human nature shining, wherever he sees this treasury of sublime enjoyments progressing, then he recognises it as, and calls it, civilization.

Two facts, then, are comprised in this great fact; it subsists on two conditions, and shows itself by two symptoms: the development of social activity, and of individual activity, the progress of society, and the progress of humanity. of humanity. Wherever the external condition is extended, vivified, and ameliorated, wherever the internal nature of man displays itself with brilliancy and grandeur; by these two signs, and often in spite of the profound imperfection of the social state, mankind applauds and proclaims civilization.

Such is, if I am not mistaken, the result of the simple, purely rational examination of the general opinion of men. If we consult history, properly so called, if we examine the nature of the grand crises of civilization, of those facts which, as acknowledged by all, have caused a great step in civilization, we always recognise one or other of the two elements I have just described. It has always been crises of individual or social development; always facts which have changed the internal man, his faith, his manners, or his external condition, his situation in his relations with his fellows. Christianity, for example -I do not say merely at the time of its first appearance—but in the earlier centuries of its existence, Christianity did not in any way influence the social state; it openly announced that it would not interfere with that; it ordered the slave to obey his master; it attacked none of the great evils, the great injustices of the society of that period. Notwithstanding this who will deny that Christianity has been since then a great crisis of civilization? Why? Because it has changed the internal man, his creeds, and sentiments, because it has regenerated the moral and intellectual man.

We have seen a crisis of another nature, a crisis which did not act upon the internal man, but upon his external condition, which has changed and regenerated society. This also, most certainly, has been one of the decisive crises of civilization. Look through history, you will find everywhere the same result; you will meet with no important fact, which has contributed to the development of civilization, which has not exercised one or other of the two kinds of influences of which I have just spoken. Such is, if I mistake not, the natural and popu

lar meaning of the word; here is the fact, I will not say defined, but described, verified, almost entirely, or at least in its general features. We have before us the two elements of civilization. Now, would one of these two facts suffice to constitute civilization? if the development of the social state, or that of the individual man existed alone, would that be civilization? would mankind recognise it as such? or have these two facts so intimate and unavoidable a connection that, if they are not simultaneously produced, they are yet inseparable, and sooner or later one brings on the other ?

It appears to me that we could approach this question on three sides. We could examine the nature of the two elements of civilization, and ask whether, by their nature alone, they are or are not closely united, and necessary one to the other. We can search history to see if in reality they have manifested themselves alone, one without the other, or if one has always produced the other. We can lastly on this question consult the general opinion of men, common sense. I will first consult this general opinion.

When a great change takes place in the state of a country, when a great development of wealth and of power, a revolution in the distribution of social prosperity, is operating, this new fact meets with adversaries and undergoes opposition; it could not be otherwise. What in general do the enemies to the change say? They say that this progress of the social state does not in the same way ameliorate, regenerate the moral state, the internal condition of mankind; that it is a false deceptive progress, which turns to the detriment of morality, of human existence. And the friends to social development repulse this attack with much energy; they maintain, on the contrary, that the progress of society necessarily brings with it the progress of morality, that when the external life is better regulated, the internal life is rectified and refined. Thus stands the question between the adversaries and the partisans of the new state.

Reverse the hypothesis; suppose moral development actually in progress. What in general do those who labour at it promise? In the origin of societies what have the religious rulers, the wise men, the poets who have laboured to soften and regulate manners, what have they promised? They have promised the amelioration of the social condition, the more equal distribution of prosperity. What I ask you, in these discussions, do these promises imply?

They imply that in the spontaneous, instinctive conviction of men, the two elements of civilization, social development and moral development are intimately connected; that at the appearance of the one, men rely upon the appearance of the other. It is on this natural conviction that men depend, when, to second or oppose one or other of the two developments, they assert or deny their union. They know that if they could prove that the amelioration of the social state would militate against the internal progress of individuals, they should succeed in crying down and weakening the revolution operating in society. On the other hand when the amelioration of society is promised through the amelioration of the individual, they know that the general inclination is to believe in this promise, and of this they take advantage. It is then evidently the instinctive belief of men, that the two elements of civilization are united one to the other, and that they produce one or the other.

If we turn to the history of the world, we receive the same answer. We find that all the great developments of the internal man have turned to the profit of society, and all the great developments of the social state to the profit of humanity. It is always one or other of these two facts that predominates, that shines forth, and gives a distinguishing character to the movement in progress. It is sometimes not until after very long intervals of time, after many transformations, and many obstacles, that the second fact develops itself, and comes to complete, as it were, the civilization that the first had commenced. But when we look attentively, we recognise the link that unites them. The march of Providence is not confined within narrow limits, it does not to-day reap the consequence of the principle it planted yesterday; it reaps it in centuries, when the hour is come. To reason slowly, we believe, is to reason surely. Providence is the master of time; it walks through time like the gods of Homer through space; it makes one step, and centuries have passed away. How much time may elapse, how many events may occur, before the regeneration of the moral man by Christianity shall have exercised its great and legitimate influence on the regeneration of the social state! Nevertheless it has succeeded; who can now deny it?

If from history we pass to the nature itself of the two facts that constitute civilization, we infallibly arrive at the same result. There is no one who has not himself experienced this. When a moral change

takes place in a man, when he acquires an idea, or a virtue, or a faculty; in a word, when he develops himself individually, what is the desire that instantly takes possession of him? It is the desire of publishing his sentiment to the world, of externally realizing his idea. As soon as a man acquires anything, as soon as his existence takes a new form in his eyes, assumes a higher value, to this new form, to this higher value, is immediately attached the idea of a mission; he feels himself obliged and impelled by his instinct, by an inward voice, to extend and establish in the world the alteration, the amelioration which has taken place in himself. We are indebted to this cause alone for our great reformers; the great men who have changed the face of the world, after being themselves changed, have been incited and governed by no other desire than this. So much for the change which operates upon the internal condition of man; let us take the other. A revolution is accomplished in the condition of society; it is better regulated, rights and property are divided more equally among individuals; that is to say the outward appearance of the world is purer and more refined, the actions, whether of government, or of men among themselves, are juster and better. Well! do you suppose that this outward appearance, this amelioration of external things, would not react upon the interior of man, upon humanity? All that has been said of the authority of examples, of customs, of exalted models, is founded on nothing else, if not upon this conviction that an external fact, good, reasonable, well-regulated, brings sooner or later, more or less completely, an external fact of the same nature, of the same merit; that a better ruled world, a juster world, makes man himself more just; that the interior is formed by the exterior, as the exterior by the interior; that the two elements of civilization are closely united one with the other; that centuries, that obstacles of all kinds may interpose between them; that it is possible they may submit to a thousand transformations before they are again united, but that sooner or later they will unite; that it is the law of their nature, the general fact of history, the instinctive belief of mankind.

6

20. THE BAROMETER.

ARNOTT.

[WE have the permission of our friend, Dr. Arnott, to extract for our Half-Hours' his account of the Barometer. The work from which this is transcribed is entitled Elements of Physics, or Natural Philosophy, General and Medical, explained independently of Technical Mathematics.' Of this book the first volume was published some twenty years ago, and has passed through several editions. A portion only of the second volume has appeared. When we consider that this excellent book can only be completed at the rare intervals of leisure in a most arduous professional life, that at the moments when the physician is not removing or mitigating the sufferings of individuals, he is labouring for the great benefit of all by such noble inventions as the Hydrostatic Bed,-we can only hope that the well-earned repose which wise men look to in the evening of their day, will give opportunity for perfecting one of the books best calculated to advance the education of the people that the world has seen. When Dr. Arnott has put the last labour to his 'Elements of Physics,' it will remain for him to add one more claim to our gratitude by making it cheap.]

Galileo had found that water would rise under the piston of a pump to a height only of about thirty-four feet. His pupil Torricelli, conceiving the happy thought, that the weight of the atmosphere might be the cause of the ascent, concluded that mercury, which is about thirteen times heavier than water, should only rise under the same influence to a thirteenth of the elevation:-he tried and found that this was so, and the mercurial barometer was invented. To afford further evidence that the weight of the atmosphere was the cause of the phenomenon, he afterwards carried the tube of mercury to the tops of buildings and of mountains, and found that it fell always in exact proportion to the portion of the atmosphere left below it;-and he found that water-pumps in different situations varied as to sucking power, according to the same law.

It was soon afterwards discovered, by careful observation of the mer curial barometer, that even when remaining in the same place, it did not always stand at the same elevation; in other words, that the weight of atmosphere over any particular part of the earth was constantly fluctuating; a truth which, without the barometer, could never have

« EelmineJätka »